Management

Directors

Years of Experience

Mike Hartley

Managing Director

Background

Mike has worked in financial services for over 30 years, originally with the NatWest Bank and then Sun Life of Canada, before moving into asset finance in 1987.

Skills

Educated in Blackburn to A level standard, Mike continued with his education at both Blackburn and Bolton colleges, where he studied for his banking qualifications. He has built a wide range of lending skills, ranging from the administration and underwriting of finance agreements, to sales and management of finance companies.

Mike’s last three roles have included building sales teams for Banks and Finance Houses; developing an administration facility and building a lending portfolio within each business, exceeding £60m.

Currently, Mike is the Managing Director of Praetura Asset Finance Ltd, which he was instrumental in collating a market leading team, as well as raising capital and various banking lines to support the business. The business is targetted to develop business from brokers, dealers and professional intermediaries.

Personal

Mike has been married for 26 years to Debbie and has one daughter, called Christina. He lives in Old Langho in the Ribble Valley, near to the head office and training ground for his favourite football team, Blackburn Rovers. He also enjoys playing golf and has for many years played off a handicap of scratch. Other than sport, looking after his garden, a pint at the pub and time with the family are the main-stay of any spare time.

Daryl Johnson

Deputy Managing Director

Background

Daryl has worked in financial services for over 28 years, starting in a building society, moving on to banking, working for an international bank, then a short period in invoice finance, and for the last 18 years in asset finance.

Skills

Educated to post-graduate degree level, he has a broad skill base across all areas of business setup and management. He has highly developed technical skills, particularly in the areas of IT and operational processes and procedures. In his last role he designed and managed the operational merger and systems integration of three subsidiary companies into one. He excels at data analysis, and has a keen interest and skill in producing strategic, as well as operational, management information, which has been used to determine and implement the strategic direction of the businesses he has worked for. Daryl also has a high degree of knowledge in the area of HR, which proved particularly useful to manage the HR aspects of the above-mentioned business merger.

Personal

Daryl has been married for 30 years and has two children, both attending university. He lives in Bradford, West Yorkshire, but has spent much of his career either working away from home or travelling around the UK. He enjoys his time at home with his family, and spends his leisure time on creative tasks and reading.

Mike Dalzell

Credit and Risk Director

Background

Mike has worked in the financial services sector for his entire working life – almost 30 years. Initially he worked in a sales role for Forward Trust and progressed into providing a business development function for a pioneering independent Invoice Finance company for a few years. For the last 16 years he has had a variety of Credit and Risk roles. Throughout this time he has been actively employed in an underwriting capacity looking at a wide range of lending scenarios. His managerial function has developed over the years and led him to being a director of a business with a loan book in excess of £100 million. Mike enjoys keeping close to the “work-face” of sales, meeting customers, and assisting the sales staff in pulling together their proposals. He also maintains regular contact with numerous of the introducers and nurtures many of these relationships. Mike lives in Preston and is married with two daughters and a dog called Max.